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Oklahoma board denies proposal for Jewish charter school — and lawyers up ahead of expected legal battle
(JTA) — A Jewish group is preparing to sue to overturn a ban on publicly funded religious charter schools in Oklahoma, after a state board unanimously rejected its proposal on Monday.
The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board’s decision blocked an application from the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation to open a statewide virtual Jewish school serving grades K-12 beginning next school year.
Ben Gamla’s legal team, led by Becket, a prominent nonprofit religious liberty law firm, said the rejection violates the Constitution’s Free Exercise clause and announced plans to file suit in federal court. In a statement, Becket attorney Eric Baxter criticized Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who has argued that publicly funded religious charter schools are unconstitutional.
“Attorney General Drummond’s attack on religious schools contradicts the Constitution,” Baxter said. “His actions have hung a no-religious-need-apply sign on the state’s charter school program. We’ll soon ask a federal court to protect Ben Gamla’s freedom to serve Sooner families, a right that every other qualified charter school enjoys.”
A victory for Ben Gamla could redraw the line separating church and state, establishing the first school of its kind nationwide and opening the possibility for taxpayer-funded religious schools across the country.
Spearheaded by former Florida Democratic Rep. Peter Deutsch, the Ben Gamla proposal called for a blend of daily Jewish religious studies alongside secular coursework. Deutsch, who nearly two decades ago established a network of nonreligious “English-Hebrew” charter schools in Florida, has said he chose Oklahoma as a testing ground for what he views as a viable model of publicly funded religious education.
In a statement, Deutsch criticized the board’s decision.
“Parents across the Sooner State deserve more high-quality options for their children’s education, not fewer,” Deutsch said in a statement. “Yet Attorney General Drummond is robbing them of more choices by cutting schools like Ben Gamla out. We’re confident this exclusionary rule won’t stand for long.”
The rejection, delivered during the board’s monthly meeting, did not come as a surprise. The board’s 2023 approval of a similar application by a Christian group to establish St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School was ultimately overturned by the Oklahoma Supreme Court on constitutional grounds.
An attempt to challenge the state court decision at the federal level failed when the U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on the case last year due to a recusal by Amy Coney Barrett, who has ties to the Catholic group.
Several board members cited the legal outcome in explaining their votes against Ben Gamla.
“I am troubled by the fact that our hands are tied by the state Supreme Court decision, but I think we have to honor it, and it’s a very clear directive,” board member Damon Gardenhire said at the meeting.
Board member David Rutkauskas said it was “very unfortunate” that the board was “bound” by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, adding that the decision was not because Ben Gamla is “not a good candidate or qualified.”
“If I could have voted for this school today without being bound, I would have voted yes,” Rutkauskas said. “I think it would be great for the Jewish community and the Jewish kids to have this option of a high quality school.”
Ahead of the board’s vote, during public comment, Jewish Oklahoma resident Dan Epstein argued that the “public should not be funding sectarian education.”
“My religious education was entirely private,” Epstein said. “My parents didn’t ask for anybody else to pay for it. They paid for it as part of dues to our congregation, and so I’m here today to express my opposition to the application of the Ben Gamla school.”
Epstein was not the only Jewish voice in Oklahoma to object to Ben Gamla.
Last month, the Tulsa Jewish Federation and several local Jewish leaders issued a joint statement in which they criticized Ben Gamla for failing to consult local Jewish leaders ahead of their application to open the school.
“We are deeply concerned that an external Jewish organization would pursue such an initiative in Oklahoma without first engaging in meaningful consultation with the established Oklahoma Jewish community,” the leaders wrote. “Had such a consultation occurred, the applicant would have been made aware that Oklahoma is already home to many Jewish educational opportunities.”
Oklahoma is home to fewer than 9,000 Jews, many of whom live in Tulsa.
During Monday’s deliberation, board member William Pearson cited opposition to the Ben Gamla proposal from Oklahoma Jewish congregations.
“My real concern is that I don’t see a grassroots effort from the Jewish community in the state of Oklahoma,” Pearson said. “Now maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen it. What I have seen is the synagogues, both from Oklahoma City and Tulsa, come out in opposition to this, and I find that very interesting, that the Jewish community, the people that are involved daily in Jewish lifestyle, that they’re opposed to this.”
Immediately after voting to turn down Ben Gamla, the board approved hiring outside legal counsel in anticipation of a lawsuit.
“I can’t predict the future, but I would say, by all indicators, I would be shocked if there’s not a lawsuit filed by Friday,” board chair Brian Shellem said.
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Adidas apologizes for campaign with Israeli veteran amputee after calls to boycott
(JTA) — Adidas has apologized for featuring an Israeli former soldier and amputee in a campaign advertising its service for people with missing legs, which sparked calls for a boycott.
Shalev Biton, who lost his left leg during the 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict, appeared in a promotional video for the sportswear company’s Single Shoe service. The program was introduced in Europe earlier this year to allow amputees to buy just one shoe.
The campaign, filmed in Hebrew, showed Biton trying on a single sneaker at a store in Israel and running outside. It did not mention his army service or how he lost his leg. Biton was in a military vehicle that was hit by a missile while on a protective patrol of villages on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, according to Israel’s Channel 12.
After the video circulated widely online, pro-Palestinian activists called for a boycott of Adidas, referencing Gaza’s high number of amputees created by Israeli attacks since October 2023.
Adidas apologized for the campaign on Monday in a statement on the Adidas Arabia Instagram account.
“We recognize that an image used in a recent local activation has raised concerns and strong reactions,” the company said. “It was never our intent to cause offence, and we apologize for anyone affected. We acknowledge the concerns that have been raised and are taking the feedback seriously.”
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, said the apology from Adidas was insufficient and demanded that the company “immediately remove the Israeli soldier from all Adidas promotional material and channels.”
“Those ‘affected’ are millions of Palestinians living under Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, its illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory, and its decades long settler-colonial apartheid regime,” PACBI said in a statement.
Biton said on his Instagram account that he received “an insane wave of hate” over recent days. In an appeal for support, he told viewers, “I want to feel that you are here with me.”
Gaza has recorded over 5,000 limb amputations due to traumatic injuries, according to a May report from the World Health Organization. The United Nations reports that it has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world.
Adidas weathered another controversy in 2024 for advertising sneakers based on a model first released during the 1972 Munich Olympics, when 11 Israeli athletes were killed by a Palestinian terrorist group. The company faced backlash from Israel and various Jewish groups for choosing Bella Hadid, a Palestinian-American model and vocal pro-Palestinian advocate, to front the campaign. Adidas subsequently dropped Hadid, prompting criticism from pro-Palestinian voices.
Adidas and Biton could not immediately be reached for further details.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Adidas apologizes for campaign with Israeli veteran amputee after calls to boycott appeared first on The Forward.
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Did Netanyahu ignore Oct. 7 warning? An independent inquiry could cost him re-election.
Israel’s election campaign effectively begins today, as political parties submit their list of candidates who will contest the Oct. 27 election. It is difficult to imagine a more politically explosive moment for the publication of a new investigation into the failures surrounding Oct. 7.
Today’s report in the Haaretz newspaper alleges that Benjamin Netanyahu received an extraordinary personal warning from UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed roughly a week and a half before the Hamas attack. According to the report, bin Zayed told Netanyahu during a 45-minute telephone conversation that Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation against Israel that could cause bloodshed and destabilize the region.
Netanyahu reportedly replied that he believed Hamas was focused on the West Bank and assured the Emirati leader that Israel was prepared. The Haaretz report cites multiple senior foreign sources reportedly briefed on the conversation and an adviser to bin Zayed who was present for the call.
Even more consequentially, the investigation says Netanyahu did not pass this specific warning to the heads of the Shin Bet, Mossad or Israel Defense Forces. Former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and former IDF chief Herzi Halevi, for their part, told Haaretz that they had not been informed of such a warning, while the UAE president did not respond to the news organization.
Haaretz traces the warning to an earlier chain of intelligence in which Sinwar himself had spoken ominously of an approaching “earthquake” – an enormous operation. That warning reached the Shin Bet on September 15 and produced high-level discussions in which Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar warned that Israel was moving toward confrontation.
Veteran journalist Shlomi Eldar, the co-author of the report, said bin Zayed concluded Israel had not heeded such signals – but Netanyahu “tried to convince bin Zayed that we are fine with Gaza.”
Netanyahu denies the central allegation completely. “There was no such warning,” his spokesman Topaz Luk said on Israel Radio. “I think this is another effort to distort the truth ahead of elections.”
The question of who is telling the truth leads directly to a democratic mechanism that has repeatedly been called upon at moments of national trauma throughout Israel’s history: a commission of inquiry.
That very mechanism was employed in response to the catastrophic failures surrounding the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the Agranat Commission investigated the conduct of the military and government. State commissions of inquiry have likewise examined the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre and the killing of Arab citizens by police in October 2000.
Oct. 7 was the greatest security failure in Israel’s history, leaving more than 1,000 people dead, hundreds taken hostage, communities overrun and the country plunged into years of war.
Netanyahu has resisted all calls to establish an independent state commission – trying instead to set up an inquiry in which the opposition and coalition politicians would have equal say, guaranteeing any findings would be politicized. He has also attempted to deflect all blame onto the security establishment – making the issue a central one in the election campaign.
“You knew, you ignored it, you failed and you are guilty,” said opposition politician Yair Golan Tuesday, addressing his comments to Netanyahu. “We will set up a state inquiry that will expose the truth and those guilty will have to face justice .. for negligence that caused a massacre.”
Under the Commissions of Inquiry Law adopted in 1968, once the government establishes a state commission, its members are appointed by the president of the Supreme Court, and its chairman must be a serving or retired judge. The arrangement is intended to give the investigation independence from the political figures and institutions whose decisions it may ultimately have to judge.
And therein lies a rather extraordinary convergence. Netanyahu and his government have spent years attacking the legitimacy of precisely the institution entrusted by law with ensuring the independence of such an investigation: the Supreme Court. The campaign to weaken the judiciary that tore Israel apart before Oct. 7 has since provided a convenient argument against using the established mechanism for investigating Oct. 7 itself.
Netanyahu argues that a commission whose members are selected by the Supreme Court president cannot command broad public confidence. His opponents argue that a bespoke “political commission” may sound superficially balanced, but conclusions associated with coalition appointees would inevitably be dismissed by Netanyahu’s opponents as an attempt to protect him. Meanwhile findings associated with opposition appointees would be portrayed by his supporters as an attempt to destroy him. Israel would begin with two political camps choosing investigators and almost certainly end with two political camps accepting different versions of the truth.
The opposition has therefore refused to participate, arguing that the proposal would allow Netanyahu to influence the investigation of his own government. The stalemate has produced an outcome that is increasingly difficult to view as accidental: there is no agreed commission, no authoritative account of what happened and an ever-expanding vacuum in which every faction is free to construct its own version of Oct. 7.
Into that vacuum has flowed something far more disturbing than an ordinary argument over political responsibility. Netanyahu has worked relentlessly to shift responsibility toward the intelligence chiefs, the generals and especially the Shin Bet. Around him has grown an increasingly elaborate conspiracy theory that Oct. 7 may have involved something more sinister than incompetence and catastrophic misjudgment: an internal betrayal designed to damage Netanyahu politically.
What the Haaretz report provides is another powerful indication of how much remains unresolved, along with a potentially devastating explanation for Netanyahu’s determination to keep the established investigative mechanism from examining it. If the report is substantially correct — if Netanyahu personally received another serious warning before Oct. 7, misunderstood its significance, failed to circulate it to the security chiefs and then spent years attempting to redirect responsibility toward those same institutions — his resistance to a genuinely independent inquiry is clearly a political calculation..
“It’s like a knife in the stomach,” said Merav Svirsky, whose parents were killed in Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities hardest hit on Oct. 7, and whose brother was kidnapped and killed in Gaza. “My father and mother could have been alive. My brother would not have been kidnapped and would be alive. And while others resigned, Netanyahu clings to his seat.”
The post Did Netanyahu ignore Oct. 7 warning? An independent inquiry could cost him re-election. appeared first on The Forward.
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Tidbits: New German textbooks about the Jewish religion
Tidbits is a Forverts feature of easy news briefs in Yiddish that you can listen to or read, or both! If you read the article and don’t know a word, just click on it and the translation appears. Listen to the report here:
צום ערשטן מאָל זינט דעם חורבן האָבן די דײַטשישע עפֿנטלעכע שולן באַקומען לערנביכער געווידמעט דער ייִדישער רעליגיע, כּדי די לערערס זאָלן קענען זיי ניצן ווי אַ טייל פֿונעם קוריקולום.
די סעריע פֿון אַכט בענד, „דעת הדורות“ (דאָס וויסן פֿון די דורות), וועט לערנען תּלמידים צווישן 10 און 16 יאָר אַלט אויף דײַטש וועגן דער תּורה, דעם תּנך, די תּפֿילות, ייִדישער עטיק, הלכה, יום־טובֿים, דעם ייִדישן לעבנס־ציקל און דער ייִדישער געשיכטע.
דער ערשטער באַנד, וואָס קאָנצענטרירט זיך אויף דער תּורה, וועט מען אָנהייבן ניצן אינעם נײַעם שוליאָר.
די ביכער, וואָס זענען צונויפֿגעשטעלט געוואָרן דורכן „צענטראַל-ראַט פֿון די ייִדן אין דײַטשלאַנד“ בשותּפֿות מיטן „ערנסט קלעט פֿאַרלאַג“, ווערן געצילעוועט סײַ אויף פּריוואַטע ייִדישע שולן סײַ אויף מלוכישע שולן איבער גאַנץ דײַטשלאַנד.
דער ציל איז צו באַקענען די תּלמידים מיט דער ייִדישער רעליגיע און טראַדיציעס אין אַ צײַט וואָס עס וואַקסט דער אַנטיסעמיטיזם איבערן לאַנד.
ביז איצט האָבן די לערער פֿון רעליגיעזע ייִדישע לימודים נישט געהאַט קיין מאָדערנע לערנביכער וועגן יהדות אין הסכּם מיטן קוריקולום, אַזוי ווי ס׳האָבן געהאַט די לערער פֿון קריסטלעכע רעליגיעזע לימודים. צוליב דעם בלויז האָבן די לערער פֿון דער ייִדישער רעליגיע געמוזט אַליין צונויפֿשטעלן אַרבעט־בויגנס און אַנדערע מאַטעריאַלן, וואָס זיי האָבן איבערגעזעצט פֿון אַנדערע שפּראַכן.
אין אַ מעלדונג האָט שילה ערלבוים, די אָנפֿירערין פֿונעם אָפּטייל פֿון פּאָליטיק און רעליגיע בײַם ייִדישן צענטראַל־ראַט, געזאָגט: „מיר האָבן טאַקע געדאַרפֿט אַ סיסטעמאַטישן לערן־רעסורס, וואָס באַזאָרגט די קינדער נישט בלויז מיט לערן־מאַטעריאַל, אָבער מוטיקט זיי זיך אַקטיוו צו באַטייליקן,“ האָט זי געזאָגט.
„דורך ׳דעת הדורות׳ קענען זיי לייזן בילדער־רעטענישן; זיך דערוויסן וועגן די געשעענישן פֿון משה רבינוס לעבן דורך אַ ווערפֿל־שפּיל, אָדער אויספּרוּוון זייער וויסן פֿון ייִדישע טערמינען דורך דער מאָבילקע אָדער אַ „גיכענטפֿער קאָד“ (QR code),“ האָט ערלבוים געזאָגט.
יאָזעף שוסטער, דער פּרעזידענט פֿונעם ייִדישן צענטראַל־ראַט, האַלט אַז די לערנביכער זענען אַ וויכטיקער אויפֿטו. „אַ דאַנק דעם פּראָיעקט וועט די ייִדישע רעליגיעזע בילדונג איצט זײַן גלײַך מיט די קריסטלעכע רעליגיעזע לימודים,“ האָט ער געזאָגט.
צו לייענען וועגן דעם אויף ענגליש גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
To read about this in English click here.
The post Tidbits: New German textbooks about the Jewish religion appeared first on The Forward.
